Town council legal battle in crack saga continues as total cost passes £85k

Damage to the park and its surroundings first began appearing in 2010 after water extraction works were carried out by Costain when building the underground car park for the Parkway shopping development.
The park’s football pitch had to be closed and the tennis courts were damaged, while residents complained about cracks in their homes.
Victoria Park Nursery was also forced to spend funds reserved for new play equipment to repair its playground.
Legal proceedings against Parkway owners Standard Life Investments were launched by the council soon after.
Following a request from the Newbury Weekly News, the leader of the council, Julian Swift-Hook (Lib Dem, Pyle Hill), confirmed that to date £57,500 had been spent on legal fees, as well as £20,704 on professional reports, including the hydrogeoligical survey carried out in 2010. This is on top of the £6,197 also spent in repairing damage between June 2010 and January 2012, including filling cracks and holes in pathways and repairing the football pitch and tennis courts.
Since July 2013, the council has also had to shell out £130 a month to provide safety fencing around a damaged Parkway wall.
Despite hopes that the case would be concluded by March, Mr Swift-Hook said this was now not likely.
“We have encountered a number of legal delays – not the fault of Newbury Town Council or legal and professional advisers,” he said.
“We hope to be able to reach an amicable agreement that results in the damage to Victoria Park being repaired and our costs recovered without the Newbury taxpayer picking up the bill. But my patience is wearing thin.
“We have been working very hard to avoid the massive increase in legal costs that will arise if the case has to go to court, but we are ready to do so, and we are quite prepared to go down that road if needs be, with every expectation of success.”
A Victoria Park contingency fund of £10,000 was also included in the town council’s annual budget for 2014/15, which was approved earlier this month.
“At present, we are not aware of any urgent repairs that need to be carried out in order to ensure the safety of people using Victoria Park,” added Mr Swift-Hook. “However, it’s not possible to predict with any degree of certainty what additional urgent repairs may be needed during the coming months, particularly given the recent terrible weather.
“It is therefore sensible to make provision for this in our budget, too.”
Mr Swift-Hook said that was still not clear whether the hydrogeological report or any of the other investigations will ever be made public.